It's My Nature » water

Hurry Sunrise

Ed — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:50:55 +0000

I’m a morning person. There is no doubt about it! Been a morning person practically my whole life and, at this late age, I don’t see that changing any. So what can I say? I have come to love sunrises. And I love photographing them. Each one is different in some way or another.

This past weekend while making two pre-dawn visits to Lake Nockamixon, I encountered the two extremes – sunrise totally obscured by cloud cover and sunrise setting a cloudless sky on fire. Here are two images from the second day – sunrise with a cloudless sky.

The first image was made very early – approximately 15 minutes before civil twilight (dawn) and about 45 minutes before actual sunrise. I love the deep, dark, rich blues in the sky and on the water. And the long exposure turns the water into glass.

“By the Dawn’s Early Light”

The second image was made just a minute or so before actual sunrise. Again, I believe color steals the show. I just love the yellow, orange and peach permeating the sunrise sky.

“Golden Sunrise”

Water Lilies of Longwood Gardens

Ed — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:30:33 +0000

How time flies! It was a little over a week ago that Barb and I spent our 40th anniversary wandering through the gardens at Longwood (Kennett Square, PA). This visit we were particularly drawn to the wonderful water lilies blooming in the pools outside the Conservatory. Interestingly, as we learned from the docent, they put a special black dye into the water to control algae and hide the pipes, pumps and other stuff running across the bottoms of the pools. The black water also provides and excellent background when photographing the flowers.

I must say that this is one time I was really glad that I had my full camera bag with me. Normally, I can spend a day at Longwood and have a single lens, usually my 150 mm macro, on the camera. This visit, I started with the Sigma 150 macro. But I wasn’t filling the frame the way I wanted to. So I added a 1.4x teleconverter. Better but still not close enough. So I added a 20 mm extension tube. Almost but pull the 20 mm and replace it with the 36 mm tube. Success!

Here are just a very few of the images from that visit.

“Purple”

“Blue”

“Pink”

“Twice as Pretty in Pink”

Just Another Tequila Sunrise

Ed — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:01:52 +0000

This past weekend (and thank God we have another coming up) turned out to be an excellent one, photographically speaking. I’ve already shared two images from last Saturday (A Reflection Upon a Reflection and Just for Fun) here on my blog and have a couple more that I will share in this post… and I haven’t even gotten to all the wonderful flowers from Longwood Gardens which came on Sunday.

Anyway, back to Saturday one more time. After much discussion and since our daughter and son-in-law were planning a mid-day visit, we decided to just take a quick trip down to Lake Nockamixon (Bucks County, PA), one of my favorite local sunrise locations. All the way down, I kept looking at the sky and thinking that the thick clouds were going to kill any shot at a nice sunrise. We arrived at the fishing pier on the lake and I stood by the car looking out at the sky and seeing no hope for sunrise. I was ready to give up and pursue Plan B except for the fact that there was no Plan B. So I got back in the car (Barb never got out) and started to drive. As I approached the entrance to the marina, I decided, what the heck, I might as well pull in. So I did. I got back out of the car, popped the hatch and stood there looking out over the sailboats to a sky full of clouds and devoid of color. It was now pretty much official sunrise. Now I was really ready to give up so I turned, closed the hatch but, before walking around to get in the car, took one last look over my shoulder toward the marina.

And then I saw it. The undersides of the clouds began to take on an ever so slight reddish hue. I opened the hatch, grabbed the camera, lens, tripod, remote shutter release and headed down to the edge of the lake.

Moral of the story – When you are ready to give up and leave, stay a little longer!

“Tequila Sunrise #1″

“Tequila Sunrise with Halo”

A Reflection Upon a Reflection

Ed — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 02:15:58 +0000

Sometimes you see something and really has a long-term impact on you. Such is the case of a photographic print that I saw at an art show on the Village Green in Bar Harbor, Maine about two years ago now. At it’s core, it was a simple image – just several blades of grass reaching up out of water that I presumed to be a pond or a lake. The blades reflected down on the water’s surface which also reflected the surroundings. To me, it looked very simple and very elegant… and I liked it a lot.

I filed the image away in the deep dark recesses of my mind knowing that someday I would come across a composition that built off of that image and took it to the next level. Today, I may have found that composition but I will let you be the judge. “A Reflection Upon a Reflection” refers directly to the composition. The sky, blue but filled with clouds, reflected off the flat surface of lily-choked Lake Towhee (Bucks County, PA) in the early morning light. And the grasses extending up out of the shallows along the edges of the lake cast their dark shadows over top of the sky and clouds. The picture before my eyes looked almost surreal – grasses reaching out from the sky.

ALWAYS Look Both Ways

Ed — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:31:27 +0000

… in front of you and behind you.

This past Saturday morning we stopped along the Delaware River in Upper Black Eddy, PA with the intention of shooting the bridge that crosses the river into New Jersey. The boat access was just a tad downstream of the bridge so I pulled in, headed down the ramp while surveying the bridge, found the spot from which I wanted to shoot and made some images that I thought looked pretty darn good. Here is an example of the bridge images from that morning.

Then I turned around to look downstream and, moving out a bit into the shallow water, this is what I found.

The moral of the story is simple. ALWAYS look behind you. You never know what you will find. And while you are at it, take a look to the left… and to the right… and up and down. Great images can be hiding anywhere and just waiting to be found!

Sunrise Solitude

Ed — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:35:06 +0000

In a recent post, Why No People?, I attempted to answer the question why there are so seldom any people in my images. What it all comes down to is that I like the personal feeling that my images represent to me. It is me at one with nature. I am alone in my world. No intrusions from anyone else… even if there are other people around. And often there are. A boater here. A fisherman there. But I can let them intrude upon my world and the representation of it in the images I create.

Yesterday morning (Saturday) I made my way to the fishing pier (hardly a pier at all) on Lake Nockamixon (Nockamixon State Park, Bucks County, PA) well before sunrise. I had scouted the area out on a previous trip and knew that it would be a good place to capture sunrise and, importantly to me, a different place from the marina area which I have visited so often this summer. I went out to the tip of the small finger of land jutting into the lake and set up. I had hit a window so to speak. The guys who had been fishing all night were in the process of leaving and the day fishermen hadn’t arrived yet. I would have the spot to myself.

I ended up making a series of 14 5-image HDR composites as the sky progressed toward sunrise. Here is a small sampling of the images.

Sunrise Solitude #4

Sunrise Solitude #6

Sunrise Solitude #9

Sunrise Solitude #13

Here’s hoping you’ve enjoyed this little visit into my world!

Why no people?

Ed — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:34:30 +0000

Why aren’t there any people in my images? That is a question that I was recently asked.

Truth be told, it’s not that I don’t ever have people in my images but it is extremely rare. And I will go to great lengths to work around people and keep my images people-free. Sometimes my work has been criticized for it. Some want to see a person walking along that beach or a boat out on that lake… something to provide a visual anchor point for the image. But one person’s anchor point is another’s distraction and I find such elements to be a visual distraction. And a boat anchor around my neck. So I simply avoid them. After all, whose vision is it anyway? It’s my vision and people seldom have a place in it.

Freeman Patterson is photographer, writer, teacher who I have never met but admire greatly. He said “The camera always points both ways. In expressing your subject, you also express yourself.” I guess I really believe that to be true. In my work, I strive to capture the essence, the spirit of my subject be that a sunrise, a flower, a landscape or whatever. But at the same time, I feel I am sharing a part of me with you the viewer. Through my work, you can learn about me – who I am, what I like, what I am like, what really makes me tick…

I tend to be a loner. I know many people but really have few friends. (Sometimes while pondering my own mortality I wonder, will anyone show up at my funeral… will the many people I know care enough to show up or just those few friends?) I tend to shy away from group activities. I seldom go on a group shoot with my club preferring instead to go out by myself or with just my wife. I love sunrises because it is quiet, peaceful and I can be alone – just me and my subject. No other people around. No boats out on the water. It’s as if I exist in my own world. It’s as if I stepped into this scene and I am the first person to do so. It is a wonderful feeling. And it represents who I am. What I think. What I feel about the world around me.

And when there are people around, I feel like they are intruding upon the world I am trying to capture… my world. So I do the only thing I can. I eliminate them. Sometimes it’s not easy. Try getting a wide angle image inside the Conservatory at Longwood Gardens with no people in it. But I’ve done it because seldom are people part of my creative vision.

And when people are in my images, they are there because they communicate the same sense of solitude that I seek out in my work. One need look no further than an image I entitled “Fishing the Fog”.

I write this for the sole reason of giving you, the viewer of my art, a glimpse into what makes Ed Vatza tick… and why there are no people in my images… like in these two from Lake Nockamixon (Nockamixon State Park, Bucks County, PA).

“Marina 5:20 am”

“Red Sails in the Sunrise”

For You Bird Lovers Out There

Ed — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:53:50 +0000

I was busy most of the weekend doing mounting, matting and framing for my upcoming exhibit which begins tomorrow (June 15) at Sagra Bistro (640 Main Street, Hellertown, PA). Doing it all by yourself is time-consuming but, at the same time, rewarding. I’ll feel even better when I have everything up tomorrow afternoon.

In the meantime, I did get out a little bit on Sunday morning. Barb and I went to Peace Valley Park in Bucks County, PA and found at least a dozen Great Blue Herons hanging around Lake Galena. One in particular was very cooperative and I was able to make several worthy images of him (her?). I also was able to “shoot” several others but none were as photogenic as this one.

“Preening”

“The Regal Look”

Hope you enjoy the images!

An Inside Look into the Life of a Nature Photographer: The Weekend in Review – Day 3, Monday (Memorial Day)

Ed — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:18:57 +0000

When we went to bed Sunday night we had no definitive plans for Monday. I awoke around 0330 and as I lay in bed, what to do became crystal clear. I thought back to Thursday, the day I made the sunrise abstracts. I set out that morning to make some vertical sunrise images at Lake Nockamixon (Nockamixon State Park, Bucks County, PA) and came away unhappy with all of them. They all had too much water and too little structure in the foreground. I ended up scrapping those images and only keeping the abstracts.

This morning was my opportunity to return to Nockamixon and right the wrong. It was my chance to make some vertical sunrise images that I would indeed be happy with. So I woke up Barb around 0400 and we were out and on our way by 0430. We made it to the marina before 0500 and I set up my 5D Mk II and 70-200 2.8L IS on the tripod down at water level making sure to include boats in the foreground with the sky and reflections off the water filling the background. Without belaboring the point, here is a sample of the images that I came away with that morning. I don’t usually fawn over my own images but I will say that I absolutely love the colors that I was able to capture in the sky (lavender, peach, yellow, orange, red) and in the reflection on the water.

I was done shooting by 0600 (actually before that) and we were ready to move on to Peace Valley Park, also in Bucks County, in search of some birds to photograph. However, things don’t always work out no matter how hard we try. And after about two hours at Lake Galena in Peace Valley, we gave up and headed out in search of breakfast. Breakfast is really my most favorite meal and I am always looking for new places to experience something a little exotic. This morning it was the “Back 2 the 50s Diner” in Dublin. My Buffalo Chicken omelet breakfast was followed by a brief return trip to Lake Nockamixon before returning home for a late morning nap.

And so ended this nature photographer’s three-day Memorial Day weekend. We never traveled farther than an hour from home but were able to photograph wildflowers, make abstracts, shoot sunrises and even delve into the soul of a fisherman as he peered into the fog. And we visited places like Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve, walked along the Delaware Canal, hit the Delaware Water Gap and returned to Lake Nockamixon. One of my prevailing themes (and one that I am building seminars around) is “Making the Ordinary Extraordinary: Great Images from Your Own Backyard”. I hope you enjoyed this little foray around my (figurative) backyard and I hope you agree that I came away with some very nice images.

See ya down the road!

An Inside Look into the Life of a Nature Photographer: The Weekend in Review – Day 2, Sunday

Ed — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 22:44:42 +0000

Sunday was the day we chose for a return trip to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. I wanted to do some more scouting for the workshops I plan to offer there in 2011. (Keep an eye out this Fall for more details.) This was a trip that we had planned for each of the past three weekends only to have to cancel for one reason or another (weather twice and sick cat once). This Sunday it seemed it would come off without a hitch.

The alarm went off at 0315 and we were up and out of the house by 0400. As I loaded the gear into the hatch, I looked skyward and just smiled at the moon and stars filling the sky. The drive to Hidden Lake (our first stop for sunrise) was uneventful. Traffic was very light at that time of the morning and conditions were fine even though we passed through several short stretches of fog where the road crossed wetlands or streams. We arrived at Hidden Lake a few minutes before 0500 and I set out to set up along the banks of the lake while Barb decided she would stay in the car for now and watch for bears. (NOTE: When I returned to the car, she was sound asleep. So much for bears.) I set up with the Canon 5D Mark II and my 24-70mm f/2.8L lens mounted on my tripod and made my first images (for a 5-image HDR composite) at 0509. The second set of images for another 5-image HDR was made at 0511. That is the image I have posted below. By 0513, that little, itsy bitsy, tiny bit of fog you can see in the middle of the image, completely overtook the entire lake. We were socked in! There was no water. There were no trees. There was no ridge. There was no sky. Only fog… and the solitary fisherman to my immediate right who had settled in a couple of minutes earlier.

So there you go. Up at 0315. Out by 0400. Arrive before 0500. Shoot two HDR sequences. Fog. THE END. So here is the sunrise image I was able to come away with. I think it is a testament to quality over quantity. It’s not about how many images you make; it’s about making sure you’ve made good ones.

Now I’m not going to tell you that I just quietly packed my gear and left. Oh no! I don’t give up that easy. I stood there staring into the fog, hoping against hope that it would lift before sunrise and I could get a few more shots in. I chatted a bit with the fisherman as I waited. It was becoming cleared by the minute that this fog was not going to miraculously lift just because I wanted it to. So without moving the tripod, I pivoted the camera and lens and took aim at the fisherman, the only thing I could really see in the fog. And over the course of the next 10 minutes or so, I would make the occasional image. When I got home and took a closer look, I thought briefly about cropping in on the fisherman to make him the subject of the photograph but quickly gave up on that idea. This image is about the vastness of the fog not about the fisherman. Still as a long-time fly fisherman, I was taken by the intensity portrayed in the posture of this fellow as he seemed to be leaning into the fog. As much as I like the sunrise image above, this is probably my best image of the day.

The rest of morning in the Water Gap was spent scouting out locations for the workshops under the brightest blue skies I have seen in a long time. Absolutely cloudless.

What’s that saying… when God gives you lemons, make lemonade. Or as Jimmy Buffett is wont to say… and if God gives you limes, make margaritas!!

It’s not about quantity; it’s about quality!

We left the Water Gap before noon. As all the traffic was heading in, we were heading out. We got home in time for lunch and I was able to do some image processing before heading out to do a bit of grocery shopping in preparation for having our son and his soon-to-be fiance along with my mother over for cookout dinner.

And thus ended Day 2. Stay tuned tomorrow for Day 3, Monday, Memorial Day.